Is Soul Reaping useless?

This was posted on another board. I'm actually surprised that it hasn't gained more attention as it's an obvious flaw. Clearly this primary necromancer attribute is completely useless in PvP as it's too situational, ie. it requires many deaths to work and that doesn't happen in PvP.

What are your thoughts on this? Other than runes and armor looks, why would someone bother making a primary necromancer? Sure for PvE Soul Reaping can be nice, but again I want to stress that the PvP part is the problem. For a game like Guild Wars, which is known for balanced professions, this seems out of place.

Someone on the other board proposed a complete change to the attribute which would lower the amount of health sacrificed for some necromancer skills, which is an interesting idea.

Any thoughts or suggestions of how it could be fixed?

well, whoever thinks so obviously hasnt used a necro prime correctly in pvp. it works fine actually.

When i played you also had blood magic or curses. And death magic. If those are still in im going to specialize in Curses and Death magic

From the description, it looks like a complete waist of attribute points for any serious PvPer. But I have not played a Necromancer so my oppinion doesn't matter, I guess.

Well this subject has been grilled over and over again before in these forums, it has only been sunk with the arrival of new (or at least rehashed) posts.

Yep, Soul Reaping isn't the greatest primary attribute, could probably do with some skills tied into it. On the plus side anything that 'dies' gives you energy, so that could mean ritual spirits, minions, npcs, etc.

Not true. It does happen, just not always. It's too situational because you can never be sure how much you will benefit from it, not because the condition of a lot of deaths is never met.

Since its situational its also the most abusable if you deliberately make stuff die.
For example someone deliberately casting weak nature rituals can give a necro team a lot of energy.

I am no Guild Wars expert ( ) but Soul Reaping represents a general "flaw" of the Necromancer class, if I may call it one.
A lot of necromancer skills require your enemies to be dead before you can use them. It is obvious that the necromancer class is meant to be a support class (your team kills things so you can use the corpses to support your team) instead of the "almighty mage who rules over life & death" kind of necros some of us are used to.

I don't really care for Soul Reaping a lot, I just want to play "a warrior with something extra". However I like the necromancer models better.. so...
I don't think my cheesy blood knight is a very effective character, but I enjoy playing him and will probably have another "proper" character to satisfy my killing urges once the game goes live.

EDIT: Just an idea, Soul Reaping could act as a passive (always on) lifetap. Every time a necro damages a foe, either by using a physical attack or a spell, he would gain a low percentage of HPs (let's say half of his SR attribute) or Energy. This would definitely change a necromancer's role though.

I don't think that's much of a plan. You are limiting the potential of one player who is casting the rituals (or more) while just feeding the necromancers with energy. I think there are better ways for the necromancers to manage their energy. Just have everyone at 100% power potential and killing the enemy. Killing two birds with one stone

It isn't completely useless in PvP, but it is significantly worse than every other primary only attribute. Not only is the effect itself too conditional and weak for PvP (giving energy a moment too late by design, not enough consistent deaths to really abuse), but the line it works well with, Death Magic, is impressively bad in PvP. As there are very few Necro skills that want extremely high (13+) attribute levels, you're generally better off just taking a Necromancer secondary while using a more powerful primary.

The strength of the attribute is PvE, where things die like crazy and Soul Reaping grants a ton of enery. It's still a very good attribute in that environment. But in PvP? Don't bother.

Peace,
-CxE

Are you suggesting a N/R build with wilderness survival? That seems like a sneaky little idea to me... I likey.

Seriously, there has to be spells that will spawn easily-dying units so that the necromancer can summon. It'd work well with strategy, since Necromancer's could surround themselves with weak summons as a sort of defense against Elementalists, who may nuke and kill all those summons and create a heck of an issue with minion-spawns. they could also be used to pin players in, forcing them to kill the spawns.

But then again, too late to change much in the game, and the Necromancer has plenty of other powerful skill lines.

30-60 energy per death not counting rituals? Weak? I don't think so

An all necro team can easily have unlimited energy

...Just how are you getting those numbers?

10 soul reaping, figure bone minions and vengeance. You just have to work it a little.

And say you have 4 secondary rangers with 2-3 rituals each, doesn't matter if you overlap. 80+ energy every 30 seconds (quickening zephyr) = 8+ pips of energy at the least

Once retail comes out you'll start seeing abuse like this. It'll probably end up being toned down if anything.

I still can't see how you can gain energy 30-60 energy per death. If the majority of your team mates are Necros maybe, in which case the gain is just spread out between team mates. Is it any different than saying Fireball can deal 640+ damage?

1) enemy dies - 10
2) Two bone minions are summoned - they eventually die - 20


if the person was an ally,

1) summon minions
2) cast vengeance
3) summon more minions after he dies again


apply death nova liberally

Summoning minions cost 25 energy though.

Veng costs 10 too I think... you don't get much from it personally. As a team you can benefit, but enemy necros will as well, and you are eating the initial cost. It also limits the warriors, rangers, and primary healers you can have as well if you want to make the most of a team SR build. It could be an interesting, viable build but I don't think SR is overpowered. I don't know if its the best mechanism for arena and GvG, but in tombs or pve where stuff dies pretty often it is good.

I mostly play PvE and it works great for me, and occasionally when I play PvP it isn't as good, but I still find it good enough for me to put it onto my skill bar.

the summoner himself only breaks even, yes. You can split it up between 3 people and they'll all gain a good chunk, but it's better to keep it with one char & let him regain from the rituals only. There's definately enough energy from them

We've been working on a necro team a lot on the guild-hall website.

That's still only 10 energy per death.

That's all well and good, except that Vengeance has a 60 sec cool down, and I'd rather have a team mate fully rezzed, as opposed to one that will drop out in 30 secs or when the enemy decides to remove the enchantment.

I'm not sure what kind of team build you have in mind, but I don't think even the 'exploited' benefits of SR is good enough to be better than other prime attributes. Expertise saves more energy, DF makes Monk spells more potent, Warriors lose out their armour and weapon enhancing runes for energy they may gain in overabundance, and Energy Storage has some potent energy regen skills tied to it already. Leaving Mesmers and well, Necros left.